Christopher Harborne
British businessman resident in Thailand; donated £37m total to Reform UK and Farage personally since 2019.
Christopher Harborne gave Reform UK £36m, announced on 12 September 2026 a day after Ben Delo's matching gift, PA Media reported; the money is not yet on the Electoral Commission register.
Last refreshed: 7 October 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
Can a single overseas-resident UK national fund a party to national competitiveness within current electoral law?
Timeline for Christopher Harborne
Gave Reform UK £36m the day after Delo
UK Local Elections 2026: Delo and Harborne give Reform £72mMentioned in: Delo's £4m arrived as cash, not crypto
UK Local Elections 2026Mentioned in: YouGov puts Labour ahead of Reform
UK Local Elections 2026Mentioned in: Crypto donation ban backdated to March
UK Local Elections 2026Mentioned in: Police question two over Reform money
UK Local Elections 2026Background
Christopher Harborne is a British businessman resident in Thailand. His reported interests span aviation, through AML Global (formerly Alignment Aerospace), and Cryptocurrency, including a reported shareholding in Tether, the USDT stablecoin issuer. Because he holds British nationality, his political donations are permissible under UK electoral law despite his residence overseas.
He is among the largest individual political donors in modern UK history. He gave roughly £10m to the Brexit Party ahead of the 2019 European elections and about £22m to Reform UK across 2024 and 2025, including a £9m payment in the third quarter of 2025 reported as the largest individual donation on record. His Reform gifts were conventional donations, not Cryptocurrency.
His relationship with Nigel Farage drew parliamentary scrutiny in 2026. The Commons standards inquiry into Farage's undeclared £5m gift from Harborne turned on an MP's declaration duties rather than on party finance law.
Harborne returns as Reform's biggest backer
PA Media reported that Harborne gave Reform UK £36m, announced on 12 September 2026, a day after an equal gift from Ben Delo took the pair's total to £72m. Neither gift appears on the Electoral Commission register yet; the quarterly release covering September will be the first official record.
The gift follows a quiet spell. On 3 September, The Register's twenty largest gifts for April to June carried no Harborne entry, while Delo's £4m in cash led Reform's quarter. Harborne's earlier peak was a £9m Reform donation in the third quarter of 2025, reported as the largest individual political donation on UK record.
Harborne's gift inquiry remains paused
On 13 May 2026, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, Daniel Greenberg, opened an investigation into Nigel Farage over an undeclared £5m personal gift from Harborne in early 2024. The inquiry concerns Farage's declaration duties; it makes no allegation that Harborne broke a rule.
The investigation froze on 8 July 2026 when Farage vacated his Clacton seat, because the Commissioner's office pauses any inquiry once its subject leaves the Commons. No finding on the gift has been made. The inquiry could restart if Farage returns to the House.